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OK, OK, I shouldn't get such joy from this...

It appears that a Catholic lawyer is filing charges of heresy against John Kerry in an ecclesiastical court. This probably won't go anywhere, but for one brief, shining moment, how joyous!

I sure I'm going to get all sorts of guff about Kerry-hating, but look, that's not it. I spent some of my time last term reading Maitland's Forms of Action, a great deal of which dealt with church courts and charges that evolved out of them. Just looking into this story is like a blast from the past. I mean, I don't care if Kerry gets excommunicated or not--unlikely anyway, and since I'm not Catholic, it ain't my problem--but if court-watching is a spectator sport, how often do you get to indulge in this particular arena?

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» Also from buzzwords
from a comment on Three Years of Hell, "Has anyone suggested denying communion to those who support unjust wars?" ------------ after socializing all weekend and watching fireworks and parades and singing along to patriotic music, now i have to... [Read More]

» Also from buzzwords
from a comment on Three Years of Hell, "Has anyone suggested denying communion to those who support unjust wars?" ------------ after socializing all weekend and watching fireworks and parades and singing along to patriotic music, now i have to... [Read More]

Comments

Always interesting when the stuff you've ben studying breaks into real life. As I understand it the bishop has to accept the charge, and he hasn't, or have I missed something? Also, have they brought the punishment into line with modern law, or do they still claim the right to burn him alive if convicted? Of course what everyone seems to have missed about the Kerry/Catholic/Communion thing is that while Bishops can always choose who to give and not give communion to the vote on denying it to all pro-choice politicians was a whitewash 183 - 6 against Has anyone suggested denying communion to those who support unjust wars?
I haven't a clue. Then again, I assume that a Bishop would already deny communion to Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld: so far as I know, none are Catholic. (Though, come to think of it, for all I know they might be.)
best laugh so far today. it's my impression that kerry love is about him being the devil we don't know, that he is the designated anti-bush as bush was the designated anti-clinton. i'd be interested in some polling data on the following: if the election were tomorrow, would you vote for a) bush b) the unabomber. Now Kerry and Bush offer constrasting perspectives. Their views are as diverse as you are likely to find among members of the skull and bones yale rich white guy set. But what do we know about kerry? I'm an info-junkie, and i know maybe 5 things, none of them too important. It's not like we haven't been burned before. I understand the importance of having an anti-bush. But i'm kind of disappointed in the process, that doesn't present anyone credible.
Tony, I put this a link here to a very fine America Magazine article on this topic which is unfortunately now available to subscribers only. This page has a decent summary article--to my mind the Canon lawyer Beal has it right on the communion issue. As to whether a similar suggestion should be made about those who supported the war, two points: one, that would also apply to Kerry, unless we accept his revisionism on his support for the war; two, as I say, I think the Bishops pushing this line on abortion are wrong for the reasons cited by Beal (support for abortion as a politician is not "manifest grave sin"), and it would be an even greater stretch (to my mind, obviously false) to say that war support was "manifest grave sin." Kerry, interestingly, now says (in the Wash Post yesterday: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27920-2004Jul4?language=printer ) that "life does begin at conception." He goes on to call this "a religious" view. Yeah, like all those darned Quakers who were pushing their darned anti-slavery views on the rest of America. Why can't people keep those darned religious views to themselves--wouldn't we all be better off? Come to think of it, we should scrape Abe Lincoln's Second Inaugural off the Memorial--it's awfully religious too. W
Oops, forgot the first link: http://www.jknirp.com/worthy.htm
Martin: Actually, the vote on mandating it was a whitewash, wasn't it? Which isn't surprising, but is hardly a ringing endorsement of the opposing position. Fr. Bill: Question is, who would you take communion away from to begin with? Thinking among the usual suspects of war supporters, I can't think of a lot of Catholic officials. More my lack of knowledge than anything else, but supposing Martin wants to convert and start his own heresy charge, who does he target?
Mandating.. (yeah, that's what I said) To the other point, any serving soldier in an unjust war would be fair game. I'm sure there are catholic privates, generals and commanders. I'm sure that there are Catholics in Republican policy making groups. (If there aren't, you and I are onto a big scandal here...)

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